9.5.12

Fountain at NTNU

This surprising fountain on the NTNU campus in Trondheim has three half-solids which reflect in the water to make a cube, sphere, and octahedron. Simple and lovely.

The "sphere" is actually a half-sphere, sitting on top of a cylinder. The cylinder has height equal to the radius of the sphere.

The "octahedron" is the top half of a pyramid... if you look closely you can see the rest of the pyramid under the water. The cube is actually a cube, the water level cutting it in half and reflecting it onto itself.

There's plenty of good math ideas here:

How does the volume of the half-sphere compare to the volume of the cylinder it sits on?

Which is greater, the ratio of (volume half-sphere):(volume cylinder) or (volume cylinder):(volume whole-sphere)?